Im appreciative of artists putting stuff like this out there since honestly im not sure how many people read the articles or got what we were/are not/doing. Its funny to because there is always is this the worst of what is happening. Like its impossible to get to the worst of the worst of whats going on because there is so much. ICE straight up murdered a guy here and I have not heard about any charges for the officer (official ice comment is the guy killed tried to run over ice which video of the event showed did not happen) and left some kids in a vehicle on a side of a road. Our local news were talking to people on the street and there was a woman from france. I was thinking how nuts she was to come to this country at this time.
Yeah there is a definate split in the millenia despite the folks who are like. Its always been like this. No. No it hasn’t. We were generally improving pre reagan, that sorta stalled but not completely especially under clinton. 9/11 and the patriot act and citizens united really played a number on our system. I am older and soooo… lucky I spent to much time in school because if I had just gotten a degree and a good job quickly, I might have done well enough to have had kids before I realized the way things were going. I dodged a bullet.
So the most recent wave of fascism in the US is relatively new but we’ve had numerous brushes with it in the past. McCarthyism made certain kinds of speech subject to political retaliation in the 1950s just like we’re seeing now (well, worse then than now, actually). Outgroups like the Japanese (WW2) and Native Americans (always) have been forcibly moved/removed like we’re seeing with basically all people of color and, African Americans in the past were painted like the cause of “societal breakdown” just like LGBT folks increasingly are (another perpetual outgroup). So there’s a lot that’s the same as before – it’s not right, certainly not. But it’s also not new, which is sad.
The good news, though, is that elsewhere in the world, and even in the US, a lot of things are measurably better than before. The first chapter or so of Doughnut Economics does a good job of outlining where we’ve been successful at reducing poverty and disease and increasing liberties (even if you can’t get through the rest of the book, which I did struggle with).
We can (and must) do better. But there’s evidence that our efforts do actually improve things sometimes. It’s not hopeless.
I would say trump first term was more like the things of the past. We are past brushing at this point. Granted its the reason im in the streets like I will be this afternoon. I did not at trump one because work, wife, life, etc. still have those things but its no choice at this point.